Leaders of several national associations met on March 13, 2019, at the headquarters of the Society of American Florists in Alexandria, Virginia, to discuss how the groups can use their collective resources to collect and disseminate data on the floral industry.
“Getting accurate data on the size of the industry, consumer buying habits, and shifts in segment growth is important for our industry,” said SAF CEO Kate Penn. “Each of our groups is providing a slice of this type of information to our members, but by pooling our resources we can do a much better job and give our industry a valuable tool for forecasting and planning.”
The group, informally known as the Flower Summit, formed a small taskforce to take inventory of existing data and is exploring options for synthesizing and presenting the data on a regular basis to the industry.
The first meeting of the Flower Summit took place in October 2014; the group has met about once a year since then, typically during WF&FSA’s annual Floral Distribution Conference.
“The Summit was initially formed to discuss promotional projects that individual organizations may already be supporting, such as International Women’s Day, Memorial Day Flowers and Petal it Forward, and for identifying potential collaborators to jointly support floral industry promotional initiatives,” said Michael LoBue, CEO of CalFlowers and the designated organizer of the Summit meetings. “Using the brain trust at the table to also discuss additional needs in the industry, such as good data, is time well spent.”
In addition to SAF, CalFlowers and WF&FSA, attendees at past Summit meetings have included representatives from American Floral Endowment (AFE), American Institute of Floral Design (AIFD), Association of Floral Importers of Florida (AFIF), Asocolflores, California Cut Flower Commission (CCFC), Expoflores and Produce Marketing Association (PMA).
The next Summit meeting will be at SAF’s annual conference in September of this year in Amelia Island, Florida.
Mary Westbrook is the editor in chief of Floral Management.
